Apart from minor variations in phrasing and punctuation, Ruskin accurately quotes from Canto III of Lord of the Isles. This poem in six cantos, published by Scott in 1815, is based on the chronicles of the Bruce, detailing the return of Robert Bruce in 1307 to Scotland and the period of his subsequent struggle against the English, culminating in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, in which the English were defeated.
Ruskin entertained a poor opinion of this work, observing in notes he drew up for a proposed 'Life' of Scott, never completed, that, like Rokeby, also a poem in six cantos, published by Scott in 1813, the Lord of the Isles was an inferior piece of writing ( Works, 29.451). Ruskin attributed Scott's turning from poetry to prose to the failure of these two works.